Based on what evidence? you throw that out there and provide nothing to back it up nor do you even take into account one can use Zenworks for large deployments thus just as simple as managing a network of Windows servers and desktops.

Linux admins cost more on average, kind of thought that was common sense. You can go look up IT salaries if this is news to you.

So stick with Windows XP and find yourself high and dry in a few years after support stops - excuse me but that sounds like the most stupid f-cking idea I've ever come across.

Security updates go to 2014.

But no I don't think any business or government should stick with XP. I just think it is a better cost-saving measure than switching to Linux.

As for your first paragraph, how are you dependent on Oracle? OpenOffice.org is an open source project that has Red Hat, Novell, Oracle and numerous individual contributors; there is nothing stopping the government, as they do for other projects, to setup a dedicated group of half a dozen programmers to address problems with OpenOffice.org for the whole public service.

Without Sun (and now Oracle) developers the codebase would stagnate and die.

I follow OpenOffice more than most open source advocates here so please be aware of this before getting abrasive.

Anyways your suggestion is laughable that a company or government switch to open office and then hire a team of programmers to fill in that missing functionality as part of a greater effort to save money. The wasted money on meetings alone planning such an endeavor would likely pay for MS Office.

There is no 'vendor lock in' and as for 'smaller business software library'

There are fewer business applications available for Linux, are you going to deny this?